Thursday, April 30, 2015

Jack Ely, the original...

...singer of the Kingsmen’s "Louie Louie," died at age 71. I say "original" because Ely was kicked out of the band shortly after the song was recorded in 1963. (I don't think that's him singing in any of the Kingsmen's videos on YouTube.)From his obit in the Times (my emphasis):

Jack Ely would later insist that as a 19-year-old singing “Louie Louie”
in one take in a Portland, Ore., studio in 1963, he had followed the
original lyrics faithfully. But, he admitted, the braces on his teeth
had just been tightened, and he was howling to be heard over the band,
with his head tilted awkwardly at a 45-degree angle at a single
microphone dangling from the ceiling to simulate a live concert.

Which
may explain why what originated innocently as a lovesick sailor’s
calypso lament to a bartender named Louie morphed into the incoherent,
three-chord garage-band cult classic by the Kingsmen that sold millions
of copies, spawned countless cover versions and variations, was banned
in Indiana, prompted the F.B.I. to investigate whether the song was
secretly obscene, provoked a legal battle and became what Frank Zappa
called “an archetypal American musical icon.”

High
school and college students who thought they understood what Mr. Ely
was singing traded transcripts of their meticulously researched
translations of the lyrics. The F.B.I. began investigating after an
Indiana parent wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1964: “My
daughter brought home a record of ‘LOUIE LOUIE’ and I, after reading
that the record had been banned on the air because it was obscene,
proceeded to try to decipher the jumble of words. The lyrics are so
filthy that I cannot enclose them in this letter.”

The
F.B.I. Laboratory’s efforts at decryption were less fruitful. After
more than two years and a 455-page report, the bureau concluded that
“three governmental agencies dropped their investigations because they
were unable to determine what the lyrics of the song were, even after
listening to the records at speeds ranging from 16 r.p.m. to 78 r.p.m.”